On a distant summer
a girl walked four miles
to sell fruits at the haat
and mowed by the May heat
fell asleep on a patch of concrete.

The noon dusts played around her
sleep little girl rest your feet
the winds will play you a song
refresh you with dreams so sweet
the walk back home won't be long.

The sun had slid the shadows grown
when opened her dream dazed eyes
there she was at the haat all alone
her fruits in the basket had dried.

She had dreamed a round dime
clutched in her palm
colored gold with her wish

she had slept thru the time
and when the winds calmed
held nothing to buy home a fish.

Time has flown those dusts far away
years have grown her wise
yet when the winds blow lonely in May
her tears she cannot disguise.

When the moon hovers hallucinated
on the post canal
breaking in bubbles of fish breath
the white widow of the night
revives her long dead tongue
to lick the scales of your skin
pulling you into her bed of nails
making love with you the whole night
leaving you bruised and insatiate
when they find your shadow
scouring the edge of the canal
with her name on its lip.

I want to be friends with Glenn Danzig.
We can conjure up some evil.
No lesser imps
or minor demons though.
Only a meeting with
the capital “D” Devil
because Glenn and I would command such an audience.

I want to be friends with Glenn Danzig.
We can giggle like schoolgirls
when Chuck Biscuits sits on that whoopie cushion we left out for him or
finds a fake, plastic eyeball floating in his coffee mug.

I want to be friends with Glenn Danzig.
We can go on the “Punch America’s Face Again” tour.
We wouldn't be singing in our slimy baritones on this road trip.
Just passing out black eyes
like Halloween candy.
Leaving a trail of busted noses and
broken hearts
in our wake.

There would be sleepovers.
Glenn and me
with Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten and
the ghost of Peter Steele in attendance.
Ouija Boards and light-as-a-feather.
Peter Steele would always win.
He is a ******* ghost after all.

We could give each other nicknames:
Goodboy Glenn and The Big Dill.
maybe a secret handshake…
Nothing too elaborate.
Just cool, y’know?

We would text one another
after the season finale of The Walking Dead:

Darryl needs to die he’s not even in the comic but it’ll probably be Michonne there’s no justice on T.V. for cool black girls this show has just been a study in emotionally manipulating its audience since the beginning anyway why are we the only ones who see that

Why are we the only ones who see that?

Are you listening Glenn?

There’s a menacing chill
on the air
this evening.
“Had I the wherewithal
I’d leave this place,”
I think to myself
as the first warning is issued
by that unfriendly cloud
hanging low and dark
over the mountain.
While once I thought that
the rain would fall with purpose,
I’ve come to understand
that floodwater has no manifesto
except to place the scumline as high as it can.
We can stack these sandbags tall
around our hearts
without regard for what’s on either side of the dam.
They’re only transient monuments to ineffectiveness anyway.


An assassin stands at the corner
wondering if I’ll ever leave my house
and its warmth.
I have news for him, though…
There’s nowhere to go, and
the weatherman thinks we’ll have a storm.

Straws and twigs litter the balcony
leaves withered from winter
pigeons have homed here safely
dirtied the place
but I don't mind
not replaced the broken glasses
we can make do with them
our family has grown
somewhere we left the nest
to wither in winter
barely holding together
me and her.